The whole truth or partial info. What do you prefer?

[uv23]

After buying numerous campaign settings released by different publishers, I've noticed a divergence in the history sections of those settings. Whereas some publishers present the history of a region/world as a collection of myths, mysteries, and loose truths, others present a concise and detail heavy history, revealing the entire truth of a place.

Now as a DM, I would rather have the latter. It seems that the mystery should be left for the players, while the DM should be given all available information to provide years of deep adventuring, revealing a bit at a time as necessary or desired.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[ForceUser]

To date, Shadowrun did it best. Present the information as rumor, hearsay, opinion, and belief, and leave it up to the GM to decide what's truth and what's fiction.

 

[uv23]

But how about having both? I still think that the DM should know all there is to know while the players should be enjoying the rumors, heresay and whathaveyou. Why neuter the DM?

 

[ForceUser]

I don't think of it that way. I see it as empowering the GM to make the call and allowing him to personalize the campaign. It may be more work, but it's more imaginative and allows for more GM creativity. I don't like being hedged in by someone else's data; I make my own way. That's probably why I prefer running homebrew campaigns. Besides, if you spell out every secret in the book, you run the risk of losing the charm of the setting as players read what you'd rather they didn't read. Then you have to alter things anyway to keep them guessing! Better, therefore, to leave it vague and entirely in the hands of the GM.

Just give me hints and suggestions, I'll do the rest, and my players will be none the wiser.

 

[uv23]

Disclaimer: I don't intend this as an insult at all. But this poll is for those that buy a campaign setting because they actually want to use that campaign setting and the information provided therein. It is not directed at nor does it apply to people that use homebrew settings. Cheers.

 

[ForceUser]

Hey, you asked for opinions. Mine was "Shadowrun did it best." Right back at ya

 

[Maerdwyn]

I'm more on the "vague" end of the spectrum than the "specific" for two reasons.

The first is that I know myself, and while I have bought and run several settings in my day, I have never run one without heavy modification. My least favorite settings to run are those with so much information that I just feel like my hands are tied - Dragonlance and FR.

Second, in these days of player-centered, rather than DM-centered publishing, setting books tend to hold information for both DMs and Players. In that case, I definitely prefer rumors and vague suggestions to exhaustive detail, if for no other reason than I'd rather keep some mystery alive for the players.

 

[Neo]

There was once a supplement for the Mekton game called Mekton Empire, that had a really novel idea regarding history and so forth for the game, which I think could work well for a D20 campaign setting.

Basically the game provided the history but with certain questions left unanswered.... they then provided the space for you to enter your own answer or explanations to these questions..... in this way each and every group who ever owned this book would end up with a campaign setting that was specific to themselves, based on the parts they wrote, the villains, why major events occured, what the truth behind certain mysteries was and so forth each specific to each and eveyr group. The factions, the planets the races all the same but each and every universe unique.... now if it could be done on a galactic scale I'm sure it could be done in greater detail for a single campaign world also...

that would be a really cool thing to see.

 

[StalkingBlue]

What the heck, can't vote - invalid session problem, again.

I like to have both truth and rumour. I can always dump all the info I don't want, and I don't feel that reading the setting designer's "truths" interferes with my creativity.

On the other hand, I have always hated those "And what do you[\I] think happened next?..." sort of stories you got to read in school back when I was a kid. Kind of cheat you out of the ending.

 

[Tiefling]

I definitely prefer vague.